"Ah, and sure I see what you are after! And it is like a crimped fish ye are with the deep slashes, and only those would think light of them who have not got them. But you will soon be all right again after the clane cuts, while a poke or a bullet-hole is a long time haling if it does not kill ye entirely. That is what the boys mane."

It was after a couple of days that Kavanagh was able to hold this conversation. Before that he was incapacitated for talking not only by weakness, but also because the cut on the side of his head had reached his cheek, and slicing through it nicked the tongue.

Taking food and drink was therefore quite painful enough just at first without talking. But it was surprising how quickly this part began to heal. He could not smoke yet, however, and that resource for whiling away some of the long hours failed him.

"It was a regular duel ye had with the haythen in his temple, and ye won it fair and square, anyhow, without shooting," said Grady. "The other was as dead as Julius Sayser when the boys saw him, for I was not to the fore myself, having had my little tour the day before."

"I remember," said Kavanagh. "And how is your prisoner getting on? He has not slipped away yet, has he?"

"Sorra a bit of it, he seems quite plazed to be living with dacent people for a change. He tould the interpreter that it was a mighty great friend of the Mahdi's ye killed; a man some people reckoned very holy--a _faker_ he called him. At least, a man like that lived up by that cavern ye discovered."

"I don't know who he was," said Kavanagh, "but I wish he had recovered.

He was a game one that, to fight as he did after he got his death- wound."

Sergeant Barton, who came up just then, heard this last remark, and said, smiling--

"That is true enough, but his opponent must have a good bit of pluck, too, it seems to me."

"Not so much as you think," replied Kavanagh, meditatively. "I do not say it out of mock modesty, but it is a simple fact that fear of that sharp edge made me strain all my faculties to keep it at a distance.

But I was horribly afraid of it all the same."

"Well, I suppose that the other was afraid of your bayonet point, if you come to that."

"I don't believe it; he did not mind it more than a pin, if he could only kill me at the same time."

Here an officer came up and asked Kavanagh how he was; adding, "I have good news for you. We shall reach Korti to-day, and then you will be more comfortable."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

IN THE RANKS OF THE ENEMY.

Harry Forsyth had put off the evil day as long as he could, but at length he found himself forced to turn an apparent traitor to his Queen and country, or else to give up the object of his journey when his trials, dangers, and sufferings had been crowned with success, and probably to lose his life into the bargain.

The detachment in which the Sheikh Burrachee held a command came to a precipitous rocky mountain overlooking the Nile, and here they were to stop the English advance. No position could have been more judiciously chosen: the rocks looked down on a narrow gorge of the river still more straightened by an island named Dulka, which it was determined to garrison strongly with riflemen, and there was debate as to who should undertake this duty. Harry hoped that it would be the tribe with which his uncle had become a.s.sociated, and of which he himself was now supposed to be a member, because he thought it would be hardly difficult to slip away down the stream somehow, by swimming if no other means were to be had, and so join the English before they attacked, and avoid even the appearance of being a partaker of his uncle's crimes. But this chance was denied to him, and others went to the island, while the Sheikh Burrachee and his men were posted in the steepest part, the very citadel of this natural fortress.

To escape from there before the a.s.sault was obviously impossible. Up to that time Harry had taken it for granted in his own mind that his countrymen would carry any position they chose, with more or less loss, and pa.s.s on, but he now began to fear that this one was really impregnable. Parts of it were difficult to climb if unopposed, but with an enemy with a rifle in his hand behind every crag and boulder, it looked simply impossible for any living thing to make the ascent. Now for the first time Harry Forsyth became an active hypocrite, for he had only been a pa.s.sive one up to this. He busied himself about to select a good commanding spot in which to ensconce himself with his rifle with an energy which delighted his uncle extremely. And so much was thought of his shooting that he was sure not to be interfered with.

"Not a man of them can ever pa.s.s the Rackabit el Gamel by water, and they can as soon take these rocks as scale the heavens. Here the freedom of the Soudan will be worked out; the authority of the Mahdi established!" exclaimed the sheikh. Rackabit el Gamel, or the Camel's Neck, is the name of the gorge by Dulka Island.

When the sun rose on the tenth of February, eighteen hundred and eighty- five, Harry Forsyth, from his lofty position on the heights of Kirbekan, strained his eyes in the direction from which the British force was expected to come. Nothing yet; yes, those red ants, as they seem in the far distance, what are they? And there were larger black ants in rear of them.

And now in the clearer light grey ants aligned with the red. The red ants, had he known it, were the Black Watch, going into action in their red coats and kilts; the grey were the men of the South Staffordshire Regiment; the large black ants in rear were the guns. He did not know these details, but he recognised English troops, not seen now for a long time by him, and his heart beat high with excitement and hope. Now was his chance of escape. Unless he were killed during the a.s.sault, or taken prisoner and shot before he had time to explain himself, he would surely be able to get away in the confusion of fight. Even if the English were repulsed, he could feign pursuit and so come up with them.

Suddenly he saw both red and grey ma.s.ses scatter out from their centres, as they broke into extended order, and at the same time what he could now distinguish as cavalry swept round to the right. It was a beautiful sight. While he was gazing at it his uncle pa.s.sed him in a state of great enthusiasm.

He waved a rifle with his right-hand, and a banner, with texts from the Koran inscribed upon it, with his left, and cried, "They come! They come! The Lord hath delivered them into our hands at last!" And it was with difficulty that he could restrain himself from forfeiting the advantages of the strong position, and rushing down to meet the advancing troops at once.

He had not long to restrain his impatience; the red and the grey lines swept into the base, and were among the boulders in a trice. Then the whole mountain side seemed to burst forth into flame and smoke, and from his commanding position Harry could see that here and there an advancing figure stopped, and came on no more, but dotted the ground with a scarlet or brown patch.

The scene would have resembled a holiday sham fight but for those figures which lay motionless, taking no further part, so orderly and regular was the advance. Presently the combat entered on a new phase.

Unchecked by the storm of fire which had broken out upon them, the Highlanders and South Staffordshire pressed steadily on amongst the rocks; when there was room they squeezed between them; when this could not be done they swarmed over them; still they pressed steadily on.

Steadily, indeed, but slowly. Behind each rock there was an Arab, and when a soldier wriggled round it or swarmed over it, he found himself engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict, in which, however, the bayonet generally proved victorious over sword or spear. It was most magnificent fighting; each individual man had to force his independent way in the face of a deadly fire from hidden foes, at whose covers he went straight. If he were hit there was an end of his course; but, if he stood up, into the hiding-place where his foe lay concealed, he was bound to go; and then, if he killed his man, as he mostly did, forwards and upwards at another. There was no sense of support afforded by the touch of comrades, and the being an item of a serried ma.s.s, as in the case of the majority of the battles of the Soudan, fought in square formation. Then there might be unsteady or pusillanimous soldiers, whose faults were hidden by their firmer comrades, from whose presence and example they gained confidence; but at Kirbekan every soldier fought on his own account, as it were, and failure in courage or dash in any individual would have been at once perceptible. But there was no such failure, and the Black Watch and South Staffordshire fought as British soldiers fought in the Peninsula, at Waterloo, at Alma, and at Inkerman.

Higher and higher they came, and the Arabs began to grow uncontrollably excited. The Sheikh Burrachee came to the post occupied by Harry, who immediately let loose his rifle at a fine rock near which there was n.o.body. But he might have spared himself the trouble; his uncle never noticed him; he only came there because the spot afforded the best view of a portion of the English advance.

"It is impossible!" he cried; "and yet there they are. Has Sheytan given them charmed lives?" and he charged down, waving his banner, and calling on his tribesmen to follow him and extirpate the infidels.

Harry saw him falter on the brow of a crag, stretch his arms wide, drop weapon and banner, and fall backwards. Forgetting everything else at the sight, he ran down to him and raised his head.

He was quite dead.

"Poor Uncle Ralph! You were kind to me, and you loved my dear mother.

Would that you had met with a better fate!" he said, as he turned away, and looked about for the means of escape.

There was no reason for further delay; the Arabs had too much to do to look after themselves to notice him; and his uncle was dead!

Round the side of the rock he crept, keeping well under shelter, till he found a side where no fight was raging, and here he clambered cautiously down into the plain, and made for that part of the Nile where he had seen the English pontoons and boats.

After about an hour's cautious approach, he came near enough to hail the nearest sentry.

"I am an English prisoner, released by your attack!" he cried; and after his report of himself had been carefully heard by an officer, he was received with welcome and eagerly questioned as to what he knew about the progress of the fight.

"Most of the points had been carried when I made my escape," Harry said; "but I fear the loss has been very heavy."

Heavy indeed it proved when the full news came in! Colonel Eyre, commanding the South Staffordshire, fell at the head of his regiment at the first onset; Colonel Green was killed at the hottest moment of the struggle; and shortly afterwards General Earle, the commander of the expedition himself, was shot dead from a stubbornly-defended building.

Harry told his story, was examined, cross-examined, re-examined; for all he had to say was most interesting, and very different from the meagre and often contradictory reports to be gleaned from natives. He told them of the force in Dulka Island. But they knew of that, and heeded it not, finding no difficulty in sh.e.l.ling the Arabs there out of it without an attack.

The only thing he was reticent about was the story of his uncle. Poor, crack-brained visionary, he had gone to his account now, and what need was there to recount his treasonable vagaries?

An old Harton boy is almost sure to find some mutual acquaintance in any group of English officers he may fall in with in any part of the world, and when at the evening meal he was chatting with his hospitable entertainers, Strachan's name happened to be mentioned.

"What, Tom Strachan, of the Blankshire?" he cried.

"That's the man!"

"Is his regiment in the Soudan?"

"No, but _he_ is. He is an active card, and volunteered to act on the staff, and has done a good bit of galloping business. I think he is working in the Transport now, at least he was when we heard last from Korti."

From this and all else he could gather Korti was the place Harry now had to try and make for, and he was soon once more on his travels down the river.

We will not follow his footsteps, since he met with no adventures to be compared at all with those he had gone through. And very glad he was of it, for the one thing he now dreaded most was delay.

He had not long been at Korti before he saw the very old friend he had been asking after, and soon got an opportunity of speaking to him, busy as he seemed to be.

"Don't you know me?" he asked.